Month: July 2017

We’ve all had those moments where we think… “If I could turn back time”. When I think back to when I was 14 there are certainly some cringeworthy moments that come to mind. However despite everything those years brought to me, happy and sad, I don’t regret a lot of things at all.

2011 was the year I turned 14, all of the telltale signs of angry adolescence hung directly overhead and I had absolutely no idea the kind of effect it would take on me, nor did my parents or anyone I knew really. I was now a teenager… totally unpredictable, right? Well I have a few words of advice for the newly 14 year old Emily.

Black eyeliner and a side-fringe never really suited anyone

I get it, everyone is doing it. You figure if everyone is doing it, it must be cool right? wrong. So wrong. Your almost 20 year old self recently debated the whole fringe thing again, then looked at photos of you and laughed and laughed and laughed and then didn’t get a fringe. It’s not that you aren’t pretty, it’s just the world likes you so much better when you can see your eyes without dark pencil lines and hair dangling half over them. And trust me, the world of makeup deserves so much more respect than what you’re currently giving it.

Most boys are assholes

And it’ll take more than one to figure that out. AND might I add that just because you might never officially date doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to feel hurt by them. It’s just the age honey, they have too much testosterone than they know what to do with. When the right one makes his move you’ll know it, trust me.

STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE

For gods sake. Honestly, I don’t need to elaborate. You do you perfectly well, your friends do themselves perfectly well, so do strangers and people you’ll never meet. The longer you spend trying to justify in your own head why you’ve done better then them is just time that could be better spent worrying about what you’re going to get from the tuckshop for lunch, and god it better be a fresh chocolate chip muffin because let me tell you, you’ll never find anything like it again.

Your endless love for squash still inspires me

This thing that you’ve got going, all the training and the healthy eating and the focusing. It is time well spent! I can’t tell you how many times you’ll look back at what you achieved and be so damn proud of where you let it take you. Don’t even second guess the parties you won’t go to, or the apparent “bad choices” everyone says teenagers need to make in order to grow, you won’t make those choices because you will be doing what you love. And it will be 100% worth it, I promise.

Don’t let people tell you these are the best years of your life. ALL your years should be

I don’t know how many times throughout high school you’ll hear people say that to you, but it’s a lot. And don’t let that freak you out because, yes, they’re great. But every year after school is great too. And I can’t even begin to explain that your perspective of what “great” really is can change in a nanosecond. Sure times get tough and things test you all the time, but have a look around you, what are you really leaving behind when you finish school? Certainly not your family or your friends, and lets be honest here, those things are really that makes life beautiful.

Most of all, stop worrying so much. Everything will work out beautifully, regardless if it was what you expected.

It is an incredible thing watching a child grow, and when it is your own child it is even more amazing. From barely opening her eyes or smiling when she was just hours old, to the squealing, excitable, playful 5 month old she is today. It’s amazing how quickly they grow and learn.

We are still very much on our journey together of breastfeeding, and as of late she has been favouring one over the other… oh the joys of having lobsided boobs! She’s also picked up the adorable habit of scratching me while she feeds to entertain herself, so if you see me on the street with a scratched up neck and chest, we do not have a domestic situation, my daughter is just fascinated with the feeling of ripping skin under her fingernails (which I do cut by the way, they just seem to grow at lightning speed).

The list of things that have gone in her mouth (to eat) other than boob however is rather short, which I’m happy to say as we didn’t want to start the real journey to solids until she’s 6 months. Of course we’ve had a bit of play with texture and flavor though! Pumpkin, rice cereal, mandarin and daddies fingers are all on the list, pumpkin wasn’t so much a winner… you can see her reaction on our youtube channel if you haven’t already and want a bit of a giggle -> Baby’s first solids . As I was saying about the six month mark, her brain and stomach will be a lot better prepared for more full-time solids then, so we’re not taking the food game in any way seriously until then, we usually only have a play when she seems interested in what we’re eating anyway.

The sleeping situation is going great, of course everyone asks “Is she sleeping through?”, well no, but thats not the goal here with us, the goal is to get into a routine that works for us both. A regular bath time, quiet time and bedtime leads to better timed feeds during the night that don’t turn me into a zombie in the morning. She normally wakes 3 times during the night after going down at 7pm, she’ll wake around 9pm, around 1am and then again at around 4am and wake up for the day around 8am! Yay for sleep ins! (what’s the bet tomorrow morning she pulls a fast one on me just because I wrote that?)

Violet also went swimming for the first time ever this month in a lovely heated swimming pool at the Mantra Chevron Towers on the Gold Coast while we were visiting her Nanny and Poppy and watching her uncles play squash. She absolutely loved it, we can’t wait for summer to take her swimming at the pool in our complex!

She’s rolling, grabbing and squealing with joy more often than not and usually only gets grumpy when she’s tired or wanting a cuddle. We see more and more personality shining through every single day, and despite everything I wouldn’t change a single moment that I get to watch her learn and grow for the entire world.

It is the warmth of the sun on a cold winters morning. The smell of rain after an entire season without. The kiss of the cool water as you step into the ocean. The breath of fresh air after a long flight home.

It is in the way they smile, with their whole heart, as your eyes meet each other in the early hours of the morning. The way their fingers explore the texture of our skin as if with every day it is new to them again.

It’s the way that no one can settle them like the arms of their parents, the way your comforting coos and embracing cuddles reminds them that they are safe, and you are here.

It’s the fiery passion for their happiness and safety you’ve built in your heart without even realising you were trying. It burns brighter with every day you hold them in your arms, and drives you in every way to better yourself. For them.

It’s incredibly motivating and moving to see someone who is half of you and half of the one you love, look to you, with all of the trust in their entire world, and feel for you with nothing but overwhelmingly pure love. You, and only you, are the only thing in their universe that matters.

Suddenly nothing else is important anymore, not the world’s politics, not the price of fuel or the amount of money in your bank. It’s them, and somehow, through all the pain and misery the world might throw at you, the fact that they reach for you for comfort and for love… It erases everything you ever thought to be wrong in your life, and replaces it with a space large enough to cover solar systems and galaxies filled with nothing but your baby’s heart.

I can’t possibly describe exactly what it’s like to be a mother, it is a journey like no other and I feel incredibly blessed to have taken this journey, even if it was at an unexpected time. Violet lights up my world and has turned even the darkest parts of my life into something truly, remarkably beautiful.

Six or seven months ago when I was waddling around with an early third trimester bump, I had a conversation with an older woman who was a customer at my workplace whom I’d just helped with her meal.

The conversation was loosely about how she used to be so exhausted and how scared she was about falling asleep with her baby in her arms. I agreed that the concept was scary and swore I’d never pull my little one into bed with me, no matter how exhausted I was. I’d love to take a minute to laugh about that response because here I am 5 months into motherhood, swearing by co-sleeping.

It’s a controversial topic, and there are certainly lots of mixed views on it. All opinions aside I honestly think that co-sleeping is what has saved my sanity. But I want to take a minute to talk about the history behind why co-sleeping seems to come so naturally to us, despite some mums being incredibly afraid of it.

When we look back at the animal kingdom we see so many different types of infants (I’m going to use my own terminology here so bare with me). We’ve got the Babies that are born and immediately fend for themselves, think of animals like sharks; I’ll call these independent infants. They get out and they go, go, go. These mothers obviously don’t breastfeed.

Then we’ve got the bubs that are born and immediately walk, and follow their mother, animals like elephants and giraffes. Their natural instinct is to follow and suckle. These ones I’ll call follow infants (I know super creative).

Of course we’ve got the animals who burrow and hide their infants, these animals only return to their burrows once or twice a day so therefore their milk would be more filling as they feed less regularly. I’m not sure what to call these ones, but I’m at a point now where I kind of have to give them a name so burrow babies work I guess.

And then, there’s the babies that are born completely dependent on being carried. I’ll call them latch infants because they’re literally hanging on for life as they can’t walk at all or fend for themselves on their own. Animals like monkeys, chimps and you guessed it, humans. It is these babies natural instinct to be close to their mothers, they feed more regularly and sometimes for shorter amounts of time, mostly because they’re always attached to mum and able to get their milk as they please.

In the animal kingdom it is completely normal for latch infants to sleep on or with their parents/family. It’s in their instinct. And human babies are born with the exact same instinct. Just as a mother has the instinct not to crush or smother her baby in her sleep, provided she is not intoxicated, under the influence of drugs etc.

But to me, provided these guidelines are followed I feel completely at ease, actually I sleep even better when Violet is lying in my arms. When she wakes up, she finds the nipple herself, I might wake briefly to assist her, but this is almost second nature to me, to the point where I hardly remember doing it.

When we don’t co-sleep, she fully wakes, crying, and takes longer to settle and I even find she often has more wind after feeding because of it. When we don’t co-sleep, Violet wakes anywhere up to 7 times between midnight and 6am. 7 TIMES. And yes, sleep deprivation is part of being a parent, but when this is occurring every night for weeks on end, it is virtually impossible to be a normal functioning human being, let alone a mother.

So we do it, we co-sleep, not all night long but mostly between midnight and 6am, there are times when we sleep beside one another. And it’s honestly been the best thing I’ve done for us.

And unlike most people say about co-sleeping’ effects on a babies ability to sleep on their own;

She still self settles

She still is able to sleep in her cot by herself

She isn’t dependent on being held 24 hrs a day

She doesn’t need to be rocked to sleep

In fact, she sleeps better now, on her own, during the times of night that she is in her cot, then she ever did when I was getting up to feed her and putting her back down every hour or so.

And no, it doesn’t impact my relationship with my partner, it actually makes him feel closer to us both

PLUS I’m getting about 5 extra hours of sleep then I ever got in the beginning.

Co-sleeping works differently for everyone. Not everyone can do it, and I’m never going to be one to judge people for doing something/not doing something. But I say if you’re struggling to sleep at night because your baby is dependent on you during certain hours of the night, like Violet between midnight and 6am. You should never feel guilty for co-sleeping, because it’s natural and instinctual, and most importantly it works for you.

Thank you to everyone for your continuous love and support, it means the most to me, I love writing and for now it is my fondest hobby to capture my thoughts in time of this journey motherhood has taken me on. I’ve always known I was passionate about it, but having Violet has truly made me realise just how much I love it. All of my followers, friends and family help make this dream of having my thoughts heard come true every single day.